Lancaster University and UCLAN receive six Times Higher Education Award nominations

Lancaster University and the University of Central Lancashire (UCLAN) have been shortlisted for six awards in the Times Higher Education (THE) Awards 2023.

The awards are “widely recognised as the ‘Oscars of higher education'”, with hundreds of entries each year showcasing the “talent, commitment and innovations of teams and individuals across all aspects of uni life.”

For the first time since the awards launch in 2005, the ceremony will be held outside of London and instead take place at the ACC in Liverpool on Thursday, December 7th.

Lancaster Uni appears on the shortlist for three awards – Business School of the Year, Knowledge Exchange/Transfer Initiative of the Year and Outstanding Estates Team.

Lancaster’s Management School has been shortlisted for their Entrepreneurs in Residence (EiR) Programme, a three-fold programme of “business owner-managers wanting to maintain strong links with LUMS; students of entrepreneurship and related subjects; and faculty, who enliven teaching with practitioner input and who need research access.”

The uni’s Estates Team has been shortlisted for “making campus a sustainable and inspiring place to be.” Over the last few years, the team have been “paving pioneering pathways […] challeng[ing] sector-space-use culture, chang[ing] behaviour and capitalis[ing] opportunities to reuse/repurpose space and reduce carbon.”

Finally, Lancaster has been nominated for Knowledge Exchange/Transfer Initiative of the Year for “building innovative research and knowledge exchange capacity for the co-creation of circular waste-to-energy systems in 14 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa.”

The university has co-created multiple solutions, including “anaerobic digestos [which] can deliver integrated solutions for waste management, power, food and soil security, and improve health in informal communities.” They have also piloted community initiatives in educational facilities in Ghana and Nigeria since 2021.

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UCLAN has also been shortlisted for three awards – Oustanding Contribution to Equality, Diversity & Inclusion, Widening Participation or Outreach Initiative of the Year and Research Project of the Year: Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences.

UCLAN’s Dance and Parkinson’s Project: Connect and Flow, conducted by the university Dance Team, has been nominated for integrating “community engagement, student teaching and research” by collaborating, having regular interaction and hosting “weekly intergenerational dance classes between people living with Parkinson’s and undergraduate dance students” in order to “support participant wellbeing, student learning and enrich social interaction.”

Meanwhile, another of the university’s dance projects, Into Our Skies: Space in Schools, has been nominated for the Widening Participation or Outreach Initiative award. The “transdisciplinary collaboration between dance artists, scientists and educators” lasted 6 weeks and used “movement and dance as a tool for primary pupils aged 9-11 to explore concepts of Earth and Space.”

Further evaluation of the scheme found that the “science learning achieved in the dance aspect of the programme was equal to more traditional classroom activities,” with over 80% of teachers seeing an “increase in participation among pupils who would normally not engage in science.”

Finally, UCLAN has also been nominated for Outstanding Contribution to Equality, Diversity & Inclusion for The Creative Mental Health Framework project, “delivered by students, for students [that] harnessed creativity to […] reduce barriers and stigma around mental health and the LGBTQ+ community.”

UCLAN partnered with Tate Liverpool, Growing Resilience, Lancashire Mind and Lancashire LGBT to “harness creative practice to deliver intersectional MH and LGBT+ experiences” and to educate, support and raise awareness “beyond the student campus” about mental health and the LGBTQ+ community.

Featured images via THE Awards & Lancaster University.

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